Weekly Update: August 14 to 20

Weekly word count: 12000

It was a very productive week.  Here's the checklist:

Inquisition: Finished!  <happy dance>
First story for anthology: Finished <more happy dancing>
Second story for anthology: 2/3 done <still more happy dancing... cause that's still good>

I even got some extremely good news that the editor has a spot for mid-September, which means I still have a chance to make a February release!  I've also got a mid-September slot with the cover artist, so look for a cover reveal in early October, which should pair nicely with the release for Rose on the Grave.

I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, and I'm giving myself permission to have a quieter week next week for writing.  Instead of writing every afternoon (which is what I have been doing for the last two months), I'm going to take my boys out to do some of the fun summer stuff I've been wanting to do with them.  They both have the week off from camps and the week after that will be back to school blitzing.

I took another look at my 90 day goals, which have 10 days left.  I will not have my Scrivener notes complete, but I will have Rose on the Grave and Inquisition on track.  I think doing the short stories to submit to the anthology instead was the right choice.  I'm not sure I'll try to do another 90 day goal set, at least not right away.

With luck, I can get the two short stories fully polished and ready for submission at the end of next week.  I've got about 1500 words left to go for the second one, which should be doable.  I'm actually quite pleased with both of them.  They both tie into the lalassu universe.  One is an independent story and the other features Vapor.  If the anthology isn't interested, I'll definitely be publishing them independently as a bonus.

Weekly Update: May 28 to June 4: the next 90 days

Weekly word count: 5100

This week marked the end of my first 90 days of goal setting so it's time to take a look and see how I did.  As per Cynthia Boyko's advice, I set myself 3 concrete goals:

- write at least 4000 words per week
- have at least two weeks where I write each day, Monday to Friday
- do at least 2 tweets per day for my upcoming promotion (My March 99 cent sale and review tour)

There were a few weeks where I didn't make the 4000 per week goal, but I feel I did fairly well overall.  I had 3 weeks where I wrote each day, Monday to Friday.  And I overcame my promotion shyness.

Not bad for my first shot.  Now I look at my next 90 day goals, which would take me to the end of August.  As much as I want to keep my weekly word count up, I know it's not practical as the kids finish up school.  Not to mention that once the draft for Inquisition is done, I'll be shifting into editing mode.

So here are my goals for the next 90 days:

- finish my draft for Inquisition and have it ready to send to my editor
- finish the editing for Rose on the Grave and get the cover commissioned
- finish transcribing my notes into Scrivener to use as a series Bible

Those feel like a do-able set of goals.  I am still hoping to have my first draft done for early August, to have time for beta reading before it goes to the editor in September.

This weekend was also Prose in the Park.  Those who follow me on Facebook already know that things didn't go entirely smoothly, but I still had a good time.  I brought my camera to take pictures but forgot my memory card at home, so I don't have any pictures to share.  Traffic was lighter than last year, but more people were prepared to buy, which was nice.

Prose was the last event in the flurry of April-May-June activity.  Now it's relatively quiet until I head out to RWA Nationals in July.  Time to buckle down and get back to work.